William Friedkin’s Academy-Award-winning The French Connection gave the cinematic world what is widely considered the greatest car chase of all time. No, Bullitt (1968) isn’t better. Bullitt had a better car and Steve McQueen, both of which were cool, but Bullitt isn’t better. Neither is The Seven-Ups (1973), which has easily one of the best car chase endings ever captured on film. This is primarily because it nearly decapitated the stunt driver when the car unexpectedly slid under the back of a parked truck, shearing off the entire roof in the process. The stunt driver lived – miraculously. And neither is Strange Shadows in an Empty Room (1976), a cult Canadian (Canuxploitation) thriller. Strange Shadows in an Empty Room is the movie film buffs like to whip out during the car chase discussion to prove they’ve seen everything. While it is an amazing technical achievement it’s so over-the-top it’s, well, silly.
No, for my money, only one movie even comes close to The French Connection and it also happens to be directed by William Friedkin: To Live and Die in L.A. (1985).
There have been many “best of” and technical articles about movie car chases over the years, most of which focus on form and function, or the style of the stunts. The style in which a car chase is shot, the questionable safety that was (or wasn’t) employed aside, none of that is what makes a great car chase.
A great car chase can be summed up in one word: STAKES.
Stakes build tension. Tension makes us forget the popcorn, the outside world, and sometimes even to breathe. The stakes have to be high enough for us to care. Without stakes, all we are left with is special effects and fancy stunts, with in today’s world of CGI are a dime a dozen. The reason in my opinion that the car chase in The French Connection is so iconic isn’t the stunt driving (which is spectacular), or the fact the car is racing a moving train (equally spectacular), it’s the high stakes Gene Hackman’s Popeye Doyle is up against to make his case.
Friedkin puts us in that car with Doyle. We feel every heartbeat, every bead of sweat stinging his eyes, and pray we make decisions as quick as he does behind the wheel. Coincidentally, Friedkin himself was actually in the car during filming of this scene. While the stunt driver sped under the El-tracks Friedkin encouraged him over and over, “Really give it to me.” While I don’t know Friedkin personally, I’m sure at least once a month he awakens from a panicked nightmare about that car losing control with him crouched down in the backseat.
Before I go any further, I will limit any spoilers of To Live and Die in L.A. to the car chase scene only. Although, I will add there are many reveals that come from the car chase, including the true identity of the crime boss they kidnap and the much-debated shocking ending of the film that I can only say must be seen to be believed.
To Live and Die in L.A. is loosely based on a novel of the same name by former Secret Service Agent Gerald Petievich, although the famous car chase scene isn’t in the book. Oddly enough Friedkin claims the inspiration for the car chase in To Live and Die in L.A. came from a personal experience of falling asleep behind the wheel only to wake up driving into oncoming traffic. Talk about high stakes.
To Live and Die in L.A. is a great film for many reasons even without the amazing car chase.
The Wang Chung score works. It shouldn’t work, it should be laughable, but it’s actually perfect.
The cast is perfect, too.
Not being able to afford stars on what is still a hard to believe $13 million budget, Friedkin took a gamble on unknown theater actors who all later went on to huge careers.
The actors in question (William Petersen, John Pankow, and John Turturro) all turn in excellent performances. Turturro and Pankow would later go onto star in John Patrick Shanley’s play Italian American Reconciliation Off-Broadway. Peterson, a staple of the Chicago theater scene, only had one prior screen credit in a “blink and you’ll miss him” role in Michael Mann’s Thief starring James Caan.
The cast also included three terrific actors who left us too soon in Darlanne Fluegel, Steve James, and most recently the great Dean Stockwell, here playing a cool attorney with questionable loyalties. Interesting sidenote, two future stars, Jane Leeves (who would go onto huge fame playing Daphne on TV’s Frasier) and Gary Cole both make their feature debuts in small roles, although Cole’s remains uncredited.
And of course, the villain Rick Masters in To Live and Die in L.A. is played by none other than Willem Dafoe who proves he really could have pulled off the Joker if Tim Burton had decided to go that way.
Willem Dafoe as Eric ‘Rick’ Masters
The writing is pretty damn spot on as well with Friedkin culling much of the dialogue from Petievich’s gritty novel. The story follows two Secret Service Agents as they attempt to make a case against the cunning counterfeiter Masters.
The agents, Chance and Vukovich, are an odd couple thrown together after Chance’s original partner is murdered by Masters. Peterson’s Chance is willing to break all the rules as the duo go undercover to try and bring him down. But there’s only one problem, they need enough money to get Masters to believe they aren’t cops, and the agency won’t approve an expenditure that large. In a desperate attempt to save their case, the two hapless agents act on a tip from Chance’s informant/indentured girlfriend and decide to rip off a crime boss coming in to L.A. on a train.
Breaking down the car chase stake by higher stake:
The chase really begins with Chance jabbing a gun in the ribs of the crime boss at the train station. The legitimately scared crime boss is forced into a car driven by Pankow’s Vukovich. This is especially significant because up until this reveal we aren’t sure if Vukovich is going to go along with this robbery or not. Now that this has escalated to an armed kidnapping the stakes continue to rise. Vukovich is torn between a thin blue loyalty to a partner who has mistreated him nearly the entire film, and the very real possibility they could get caught committing several felonies. Vukovich, along with the audience, dismisses this initially because this is a bad guy. Stealing from a bad guy is ok, isn’t it?
At this point we see something Chance and Vukovich have yet to discover – the crime boss isn’t alone. The kidnapping, while unnoticed by commuters at the station, is keenly observed by burly men who are not happy about it. When Vukovich drives off they don’t notice they are being followed by another car.
The next beat of the chase happens outside of the car, under the 6th Street bridge in a remote part of downtown Los Angeles. I’m going to take a moment here to discuss the locations of this film. Obviously, it’s in L.A., but it’s Friedkin’s L.A.
The film runs the gambit from wealthy to downtrodden areas of the city all of which are hauntingly beautiful. But whether it’s a cop’s bar, a girlfriend’s apartment, or a neon nightclub, all the locations feel uneasy, even dangerous. There never seems to be a safe place for these characters at any point. The first time I saw this film I had never been to Los Angeles and it looked like another planet to me. As appropriately scary as the locations are throughout the film, none of them eclipse the tension-filled locations of the chase.
The location under the 6th Street bridge, with the world roaring above too loudly to hear screams, is a brilliant place to show the depths to which the characters have sunk. Friedkin literally shows us a descent into a shadow underworld that doesn’t get the bright sunshine of the modern city. Christopher Nolan used a similar effect when showing us the Narrows of Gotham City, deftly filmed in Chicago for Batman Begins.
Unlike Gotham City, Friedkin’s L.A. is a real place.
After discovering that the metal suitcase smashed open by Chance is actually full of phone books, the stakes go even higher. As we see Vukovich shakily hold the crime boss at gunpoint they realize the guy they kidnapped and robbed has nothing to rob! Or does he? After making him strip down, raising the stakes higher yet again, they discover he’s wearing a money belt around his waist.
Jackpot! That momentary victory is soon cut off by gunfire. Their pursuers catch up to them and quickly open fire with assault rifles. When a car accidently smashes into the pursuer’s car which was irresponsibly parked on the bridge, it distracts the shooter’s aim causing him to hit the crime boss in the back! The stakes have now gone through the roof. Not only did Chance and Vukovich rob and kidnap a guy, make him strip out of his clothes, but now he’s shot in the back by… who are these guys? It doesn’t matter, they need to get out of there fast!
The rest of this chase stays in the car as we see the guys evade their pursuers while dodging every obstacle imaginable. They weave their way through loading trucks, make their way barely in front of a moving train, and even end up driving along the concrete grotesque/picturesque L.A. river. What is so cool about this is none of it seems beyond the pale. I believed every moment of their driving despite the incredible nature of their evasion.
It’s at this point Friedkin grants us somewhat of a reprieve.
John Pankow as Secret Service Agent John Vukovich and William Petersen as Secret Service Agent Richard Chance
Chance and Vukovich have lost their pursuer and are gleefully celebrating their escape. That is until their back windshield explodes with gunfire, this time from two new cars. More cars are chasing them from behind, more cars show up ahead of them, too. There are even men with assault rifles shooting at them from the concrete sloped hills of the L.A. river bed. The stakes have risen so high at this point the money and their case against Masters no longer matter. The only thing these guys need to focus on is living, which at this point doesn’t look very good at all.
During this part of the pursuit Friedkin invites us inside the minds of Chance and Vukovich. Chance sees this as the thrill of his life, reflecting on the same high he gets from base jumping off bridges, while Vukovich only sees the horror unfolding around him. Images of the shot in the back crime boss they kidnapped flow into Vukovich’s head as he desperately fires his gun out the broken back windshield to try and shake the insurmountable force menacing close behind.
The chase empties out of a dark tunnel finally back onto the streets of L.A. only to find them surrounded literally on all sides by burly gun-toting henchmen. One guy even brandishes an Uzi letting us know time is definitely up. All is lost as Friedkin has shown us no way out, until…
“We’re going this way,” Chance says as he turns the car on to an exit ramp!
Chance deliberately drives into oncoming traffic sending cars flying into one another and screeching out of control. Pankow is terrific in this scene. He waves his hand out of the window frantically yelling, “Get out of the way!” in an almost foolishly futile attempt to help a truly helpless situation.
Watching Pankow’s Vukovich lose his cool here would be funny if it weren’t so pathetically desperate. The car chase, up until this point, had pushed the bounds of realism without crossing it. But it is on the highway we arrive mentally in the same place the characters do, there is simply no surviving this. This is artfully evident when a jackknifed semi careens toward them in what will surely end their lives. Chance has moments to avoid it as he masterfully crosses over the concrete median and into the correct lane, getting away.
In the fourteen years between French Connection and To Live and Die in L.A. a slew of comic themed car chases found their way into our hearts.
Films like the Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run franchises made us gasp and cackle at the same time, while movies like The Blues Brothers pushed the limits of physics for laughs. Later on, the Fast and Furious franchise sort of split the difference.
While the Fast films concentrate on thrills over laughs, there is never any real danger that the main characters will fail and clearly the laws of physics do not apply. This is interesting considering in real life Fast and Furious lead Paul Walker died in a high-speed car accident, and stuntwoman Heidi Von Beltz was paralyzed during the making of Cannonball Run.
Real life stakes, despite the safety advances in car stunt driving over the years, is always high, and I would be remiss in not mentioning how none of these films would be anything without the amazing stunt drivers who risk their lives to get the shot. Although the stunt community has been petitioning thirty years to include a stunt coordination category for the Academy Awards, the Screen Actors Guild only recently added one to honor their vital contribution to film. If the Academy ever decides to add the new category, I hope in their wisdom they include a retro-award for past films like To Live and Die in L.A.
To Live and Die in L.A. is a vastly underrated film and one that still holds up. There are several special edition DVDs and Blu-rays currently out of print and available, though can be pricey. A rumored new edition is due some time in 2022, and I highly encourage you to seek it out.
Fred Shahadi is an award-winning filmmaker, playwright, and TV writer living in Los Angeles.
He is the author of the cult JFK conspiracy sci-fi novel Shoot the Moon.
